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You can't be disturbed when you're listening to only the best herbs.

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A main topic, I would say cannabis reform.

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We have a lot of people who are cannabis advocates in our community rather than be medicinal,

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THC, CBV, CBN, you know, the range of cannabinoids that there is.

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Right.

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In some capacity, but tell me a little bit about what you do for people who aren't familiar.

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What I do is I'm a legislative advisor at the state house for like the last nine years.

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I was in 2015 a co-author on the white paper that led to the medical cannabis program,

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the House Bill 523.

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In 2019, I was a co-author on the white paper that led Senate Bill 57 to our hemp program.

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As we know it today, and then as far as issue two in Ohio, I've been a legislative advisor

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with drafting up amendment language to fix the loopholes in that.

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Primarily my focus is on advocating for the betterment of all three of those programs.

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Also to advocate for the protections for patients and consumers, their protection rights to

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make sure that they get, you know, a fair time in the game.

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So to say, the reason I say that is if we look across the America and all the programs

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that have been for every state, there's two things they do out of three.

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First they draft up the rules and guidelines for the regulators to protect them.

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And they draft up rules and guidelines for the license holders to protect them.

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What we leave out is in the middle.

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License and consumers.

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Criminal justice reform.

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We don't do that.

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That's one of the big things I focus on pretty much my whole thing is about criminal justice

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reform, being retired law enforcement, understanding, you know, working the streets for 20 years,

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understanding how, you know, what happens on the streets and the courts, just simply around

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drugs as a whole.

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Cannabis specifically being that, you know, cannabis is like finding chocolate in a candy

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store.

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Yeah, if I'm like chocolate in a candy store, it's all over America.

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So yeah, that's kind of what I do is I look out for, you know, protections, patients

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and consumers such as housing rights, employment rights, child custody rights, firearm rights.

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The rights as anybody else would have if they were taking pharmaceutical medications, use

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an alcohol, tobacco, have owned a firearm, whatever, they've got rights to protection.

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So I fight for those people.

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That is awesome.

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That is like exactly what we're pushing for as well.

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It's a good alignment and I'm glad we're getting to connect.

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I've seen something to do with Ohio State University.

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You kind of touched upon that a little bit.

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Cannabis safety.

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I'm assuming that's kind of like courses or some type of education towards, you know,

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people in college, you know, entering college landscape.

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So I'm kind of interested in what that's about.

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Yeah, this started back in 2016 when we had several colleges across the country.

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I think most of them have dismantled now or they've lost interest and so forth.

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It's called the SSDP, Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

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As we know, the largest denominator in incarceration in America is drugs.

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So we don't try to help people with drug issues.

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We try to penalize them and criminalize them, which is backfired on us tremendously.

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So we see what this happens.

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It costs lives.

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It costs mass amounts of money, mouse amounts of time in court tied up, mass amounts of

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times in hospitals, etc., etc., because of the way that America approaches it.

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So Students for Sensible Drug Policy, you know, these were college students in 2016.

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They wanted to be a part of legalization of cannabis.

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We said, that's fine.

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But it seemed like that particular group, all they wanted to talk about was hard core

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illicit drugs.

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And we tried to explain to them, you know, we appreciate your input and all this, you

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know, but it's more of a cannabis thing.

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So we've seen a group of them.

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And I worked with that group for years.

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I spoke many times at different events they had participated in everything.

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I got to know quite a few of them, some great college kids, some just fabulous minds of

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what they wanted to do.

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So the group that broke off and says, Tim, we want to do cannabis.

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I said, okay, well, let's start something.

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So they created the Ohio Cannabis Club, assuming that a lot of students would follow that more

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so than follow the other types of drugs.

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Now the goal behind SSDP was kind of like the organization LEAP, law enforcement action

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partnership was to legalize all drugs.

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And it does make some sense.

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It's not to promote them, but it's to take away the criminal, criminalizing people that,

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you know, get addicted on the drug.

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It may start, you know, legally in a doctor's office with prescriptions of pharmaceuticals.

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The next thing, they're not getting them from their doc anymore.

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So now they're looking on the streets for them and so forth and addiction can be a very

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serious thing.

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So anyways, we took and said, yeah, let's work together here.

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Let's create some social media pages and we did some events and tried to help get them

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going, you know, generate them, give them a little boost and so forth.

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And we were successful or they were for several years and then they've kind of faded off a

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little bit.

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I don't think they have the membership following that they used to have.

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But I'm hoping to, I've been myself and others have been putting stuff on their social media

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pages, trying to spark some energy back into them.

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I think it was more of, okay, well, the medical programs created, there's the hemp program,

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there's adult programs, there's nothing else for us to do.

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There's a lot for them to do.

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So as you probably know, one of the biggest problems on campuses across the country, if

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you receive any federal funding, then cannabis is, even though it's legal in your state,

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it's still illegal on the campus.

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And that's from a criminal aspect.

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And so that's kind of what with them is there's another aspect.

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I don't know, I mean, keep talking about called an OSU Drug Enforcement Policy Center.

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And we've seen the Koch brothers years ago, the professor Doug Berman down there was a

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law professor received like $4 million from the Koch brothers to create this new drug

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policy center to do, collect data and do research.

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That is about what they do.

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They collect data.

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And then they had the Menard family, Menard's retail store gave them like $10 million a

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couple of years ago too.

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So they've been blessed with a bunch of funds to do it.

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I've worked with them on several different projects down there.

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And we've tried to again revitalize the student participation, but hey, let's be honest about

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it, you know, if you're a student there and you're on a federal grant and you get caught

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smoking a joint or something, you can lose that federal grant, you know, get kicked off

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a campus and everything.

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But we still keep pushing forward.

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So OSU is trying to, you know, here in Columbus, Ohio is trying to make strides to for the

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betterment of legalizing.

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If that's what we want to call it, I call it regularizing like regulatory legal, even

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when you make illegal, it's still illegal.

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You guys just passed a right, you just got the hit not too long ago, Ohio.

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It's like was in the last year, right?

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November or November of last year.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Past issue to for adult choice program here in Ohio.

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And we're still, it's a year later, but we're, you know, what the language said.

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Our legislators have been very respectful in allowing the timeline to play out.

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And now it's a point, of course, we're about at the end of session and next year we'll

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start a whole new general assembly.

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So we will see some, a lot of language.

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I know I've introduced a lot of language to the issue to to clean up the, the loopholes

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in the gray area to provide protections for consumers 21 and over.

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Yeah, that we actually went.

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We voted in November, went into effect in December and personal cultivation and possession

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limits and stuff for the main things at the time.

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So that's kind of where we're at.

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August, we opened up our first adult dispensary.

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It's actually a combination dispensary.

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We used our brick and mortar for the medical program that were already there.

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And we just, you know, put in a POS system for 21 and over.

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Everybody gets the same products.

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It's the same store.

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And rather than create all these other facilities and it made business sense to the owners as

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well.

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So instead of just selling the medical patients, I can now sell to 21 and over.

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So you know, we're, we're living along.

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I'm in Michigan.

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So I'm right above you.

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So we've, we've had our, you know, we've been legal for a minute.

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And man, is it a, I mean, is it a war zone?

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That's like the best way I can put it.

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What I've noticed and I don't know how to put it.

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Because cannabis has been such an illicit black market thing sold to this day in many,

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many places that kind of follows into the legal side of it as well.

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You know, it's just something that kind of I've noticed that happens, you know, so it

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helps in some aspects with like, in some aspects, I don't know, it's just really interesting

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to see the dynamics, I guess, the progression of how things develop after these laws are

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passed and I'm a huge advocate of just make it legal, make cannabis legal.

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Like we're so, we're so far beyond, wait so far beyond like actually we're, we are far

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behind, but we're so much farther beyond like we've had, we have so many bigger issues.

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Like you said, I'm not, how do I say this?

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I'm familiar with the court systems and how all that works and that side.

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And cannabis doesn't belong there, you know, at 100% agree.

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It's interesting when you look at, you know, Ohio and Michigan and Ohio has a cap industry,

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Michigan has an open industry.

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Therefore, that's why you see the amount of facilities that you see in Michigan, the prices

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that you see, but you can also, you know, get taken on some Michigan product.

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Not all Michigan product is good.

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Get them out there, grow it just to get rid of, you know, make money or whatever it may

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be and understand that.

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The unique thing about Ohio is that our state house, the main runway out in front of our

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state house is called High Street.

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High Street turns into 23 and 23 turns into Detroit, Michigan.

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So I always tease the lawmakers there that, you know, we don't really need a cannabis

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program.

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What we just need is for you to stop criminalizing us because we can produce our own cannabis.

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We've done that for years without your help.

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You've just criminalized this mass incarcerated us, destroyed our lives.

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For the simple fact of cannabis being illegal based on a false promises.

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Where Ohio is now with their adult program, you know, we have reciprocity just like Michigan

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does for 21 and over for the adult program.

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Our medical program, there's no reciprocity.

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If you're not a medical patient in Ohio, you can't purchase in Ohio.

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So we're trying to change that, but for adults, if what people aren't taken into effect is

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in Ohio and we think $52 million a month is really fantastic for adults.

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Well that's with six other states purchasing around us.

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So it's not just all Ohio ones.

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The ironic thing is when we're doing $52 million adults in Ohio, in Michigan, from my connections

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there, per Ohio receipts, we're still spending $60 to $70 million a month in Michigan.

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Ohio people are.

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So we're still spending more money in Michigan on their adult program than we spend in our

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own state.

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And that's because of the way the regulatory framework is set up right now.

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Yeah, I know from certain people who own dispensaries that that has been a huge marketing thing,

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putting the dispensaries right by the border of Ohio.

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Yep, especially recently because of the law changes, but it's cool to hear it's cool that

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you have that you are a part of this.

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Like yeah, you know, that's awesome.

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You go to work every day and you fight for this and it's pretty inspiring.

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It is inspiring.

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So about the future.

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What about the future?

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What do you guys got?

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What do you guys got cooking up right now?

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Right now, they're actually I left the state house a little bit early so I could get home

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for this, but we have a Senate bill 326 that in essence they want to ban retail hemp in

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Ohio.

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Probably not going to happen.

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What they're going to go after and I did introduce the bill, I find it kind of funny

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that all of a sudden, I mean, you understand the politics.

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I'm sure you understand the politics in Michigan.

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The politics in Ohio is the can of the licensees and the cannabis program don't want the licensees

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and the hemp retail to survive.

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They basically want to do away with anything, any consumable hemp in Ohio, they're fine

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with industrial hemp, but you know, we want to get rid of the, there's like 10,000 stores

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in Ohio that, you know, from gas stations, the mini marts to straight up hemp stores

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to Walmart to Kroger's and call all these stores that sell all these hemp products.

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They're unregulated.

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We don't know what the products are that are in there.

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They come, a lot of it comes from overseas.

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There's no child resistant packaging or guidelines to say it can't be child attractive and all

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this type of stuff.

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So and then we've got some of the hemp places saying we sell THC here.

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You don't need a medical cannabis card.

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We got medical cannabis right here for you.

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And rightfully so by using some of the loopholes in the, you know, Agriculture Improvement

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Act 2018 and the Ohio's laws and stuff, there's loopholes that they pretty much you can walk

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in and you know, get the same thing in the, in a wide open hemp store that you can go

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to a dispensary and get it.

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And what's happened is it's, it's a lot of it and I'll be testifying in a couple of

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weeks here, but you know, part of my testimony will be the failure of the legislative body

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in Ohio to follow through with a regulated hemp program.

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Cause when we created our hemp program, we regulated everything except for the retail

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stores.

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So we let them go.

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So in the cannabis, everything's re is regulated from testing, cultivating, processing to dispensaries.

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Well, where they didn't do that in the hemp program.

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So the hemp program was able to take these loopholes and basically become an open market

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dispensary.

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So, they hurt themselves by, you know, crying to the politicians.

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I'll just put it out there and saying, Hey, you know, we want to sell our products in

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the dispensaries.

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And my comment to them was, well, why would you want to sell, we got 127 dispensaries in

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Ohio.

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Why would you want to sell be limited to 127 and regulated when you got 10,000 stores

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out here that you could market yourself to and you're not regulated yet.

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So then next thing we got all this stuff plastered all over the windows.

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License holders started snitching on them to the state regulators.

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Parents started crying about it, brought to the governor's attention.

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And so now we're at the state house with this Senate bill 326 that wants to, you know, kind

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of ban retail hemp in Ohio.

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I think the simple thing is to put some regulatory guidelines in there, but we also need to permit

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the cannabis license holders.

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They need to have rights that we're still fighting for, such as marketing rights.

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You guys are blessed up there with big billboards with weed all over it.

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You ain't gonna see that in Ohio yet.

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It might be a couple of years.

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We're fighting for it.

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But, you know, just like any other industry, the cannabis and hemp industries both should

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have the right to market their product and their services under, you know, guidelines

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that are ethical and so forth.

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So in 2025, what you're gonna see is several bills introduced addressing to cleaning up

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some of our medical program, which been going on for seven years now.

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We'll hopefully see some corrections there.

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We'll see some cleanup language and protections put into place in the adult choice program.

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And the hemp industry side of it, they'll get their selves together legitimately.

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And they'll sell, you know, they'll have the sticker on the door that say they've been

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state inspected by the Department of Agriculture, Enforcement, whoever they choose to do that

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with.

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And we'll see, you know, them selling what they're supposed to be selling and the dispensaries

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selling what they're supposed to be selling.

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So we don't want to take and totally ban an industry that already contributes billions

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of dollars to the economy, thousands of jobs to the economy.

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But unfortunately, the license holders and the cannabis side, kind of adamant about

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wanting to go after that, but I don't see them getting their way on it.

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You know, I think if, as I said, if we give them some, you know, some regulatory guidelines

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of how they can produce their increase their bottom line, that's what it comes down to.

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And a lot of it comes down to just not just not having the right to market, but an ignorance

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of what kind of business am I really in?

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You know, because I got millions of dollars and I was able to buy a cultivation center

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processing and I got three dispensaries.

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Well, that doesn't mean you know what to do in the industry or the cannabis community.

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But some of them feel that way and so and some of the product, you know, and pricing

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has got a lot to do with everything.

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Being a business owner, I have a hemp company that I run or that I own and it's called

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surgeons with CBD surgeons, but due to online reasons, we had to take the seed and we took

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the CBD part out.

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So now we kind of interchange it a little bit, but you're 100% right.

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There was a time where we were thinking about selling the THCA flower that was before there

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was like a whole bunch of research that was done into that.

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Like, you know, THCA flowers is just, you know, THCA hemp flower.

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I mean, there's like literally no difference.

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I mean, THCA is like, you know, the crystals, I mean.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, once you put in fire to it, it's all THC.

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Right.

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So, you know, there was that big whole thing.

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And like you said, exactly.

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I mean, it's like Texas area, Ohio, you know, at that, you know, when you guys weren't legal.

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It's crazy though.

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There is a lot to look forward to in that industry.

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Yeah.

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I'm excited.

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I think we've covered just a lot of stuff.

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I think myself, what it comes down to is politicians should have went to specialists to create laws

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rather than try to be politicians that are shoe salesmen, bread makers, wine distributors.

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And now all of a sudden they're in the lawmaking.

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They don't even know the difference between cannabis, marijuana, and hemp.

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And they want to make laws for this stuff.

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In the first place, if they would have went to the scientists, you know, the people that

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have been around doing this, bless this old Ralph Michiel and people, you know, I could

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go on and on with all kinds of names.

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NIDA and 23 categorized 32,000 cannabis studies, research papers, and peer review papers.

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32,000.

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So, it's not like there hasn't been research done on anything.

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It's there.

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Do we need more research?

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I always need more research on anything to see, you know, how much better you can get

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out of them and so on.

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So I think that across America, hopefully this year, we'll see a lot more states go

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legal.

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I know we've got hit at the polls real hard.

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We didn't get what we wanted to with the Dakotas and Florida and so forth.

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But you know, as long as the advocates in those states stay at it, it's going to happen.

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We actually had a threshold, what's called national nullification for medical states.

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At 37, you can file a national nullification request and they have to change national laws

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and then every state becomes, you know, technically legal then under their own programs.

323
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So that's something we have to look at.

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We have to look at, I have a saying that legalization is not legalization until we're

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free from prosecution.

326
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And what I mean by that is we've technically entered a new era of prohibition.

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So we went from total black market cannabis in the United States to we started creating

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programs, state programs.

329
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Well, all we really did was we still have criminal statutes, but now we have regulatory

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statutes.

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So it's like, you know, we're being watched twice now.

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So if we get outside of either one of the outside of the legal, what they call legal

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program, you get outside of it in Ohio, it's two and a half ounces of flour.

334
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If I get caught on the streets with three ounces of flour, now I fall under the old

335
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criminal statutes that still exist.

336
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So is there really legalization if I can still be prosecuted?

337
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No, there's not.

338
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:46,360
So do I ever see it going federally, federally, I guess nationally legal, such as we're hoping

339
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you know, DEA and HHS will get their shit together on this schedule three.

340
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Probably going to be a couple of years since they canceled the December meeting.

341
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That means bureaucracy has gotten away.

342
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:59,960
So it could be a couple of years before they address that, but it would be nice to see that

343
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happen.

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00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:06,800
It would open up a lot of doors, but in the same respect, again, it's still like, you

345
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,280
know, people here in Ohio, you know, I've had people reach out to me, I work with a

346
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lot of law firms as a consultant.

347
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:14,800
And Tim, I got caught with this and this.

348
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I says, well, you're outside the program rules.

349
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Well, I thought it was legal.

350
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I said, yeah, if you're inside the program, it's kind of like alcohol dudes, you know,

351
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if you're 18 and you're buying alcohol and you get caught with it, you're outside the

352
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21 year old rule.

353
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So you guys, you know, you have to still abide by that.

354
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:36,440
Is it good?

355
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:41,320
It has been somewhat good for criminal justice reform, the legalization I've seen.

356
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:46,040
But as I said in the beginning, I think that we leave out that third piece of the whole

357
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,920
pie and that's the most important.

358
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:50,520
I think that's what attracts people.

359
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:55,640
If you tell me that I'm protected, then I will, you know, go into a dispensary and purchase.

360
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,720
But if you're not going to protect me, then I'm going to keep going to Johnny on the corner

361
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,080
where I've been going for 20, 30 years and where I still feel safe.

362
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:07,400
Only a few people know that I consume, you know, my neighbors or whatever the church,

363
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,720
the employment, you know, nobody knows anything about it.

364
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:15,280
And if I go into a program, or what are they all going to say if I'm so, yeah, I can go

365
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:17,080
to the dispensary and buy it now.

366
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,000
Well, there's still a lot of stigma that we have to deal with in there.

367
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So we'll see.

368
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,800
Let's cross our fingers and hope some good things happen in 2025.

369
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:31,160
I'm just, I think most people would just say, and myself included is we're just happy to

370
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see some progress.

371
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:33,160
Yes.

372
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,200
You know, baby steps is cool, you know, as long as we can get there.

373
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,520
I mean, we're not trying to get, you know, five years, five years is a little pushing

374
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:47,680
it, you know, I would say, but like you said, we got to play with the cards were dealt.

375
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:54,920
It's terms is like in terms of what you guys do, you know, so I appreciate you, man.

376
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,440
I really appreciate you, Tim, talking with me.

377
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,560
We'll have to, we're going to stay in touch.

378
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:01,560
Yeah, stay in touch.

379
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:07,160
Appreciate the invite and, you know, hey, if the buck eyes ain't winning, go blitz.

380
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,800
They're terrible this year.

381
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,520
Absolutely terrible, but we won't talk about that.

382
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,040
I appreciate you.

383
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:18,520
Have a good rest of your night.

384
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:22,360
When it comes to cannabis, we're all one family.

385
00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:23,360
For sure.

386
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:24,360
For sure.

387
00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:25,360
I agree.

388
00:26:25,360 --> 00:26:27,400
Have a good rest of your night, Tim.

389
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:28,400
You as well, Ryan.

390
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:37,380
Let's play or?

391
00:26:37,380 --> 00:26:40,720
That's serious.